Sunday, August 23, 2009

Winding Down

It is hard to believe that this is the end of August! Since the grackles left, I started filling the fly through feeder, put the hanging feeder up and changed the counter weight on the anti-grackle feeder to allow all birds. It didn't take long for the doves and blue jays to notice the counter weight change.

I really haven't been getting many pics from birdbath, but here are a couple. This is a un-bird visitor, and what the heck is this dove looking at? There were a couple more pics of this dove looking into the water, so there must have been something down there.

Today when I walked out to the feeder, all I saw was wings, as a million doves flew off! Guess they like that I am filling their feeders again. I saw something fly away from the hummer feeder. I am pretty sure that it was a chickadee, since they like to drink out of the ant trap. Speaking of ant traps, someone said that ants will not cross vegetable oil. I plan to buy some this week and test that. Since the hummer's Fall migration has started, I will put those new hummer feeders back up. They are the ones that stick in the ground and look real cool to me. That is important, since I never see any hummers.

Finally, here is another 'awe moment'.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Grackleless

I re-pointed both the Birdcam, and web cam at the new feeder. Since it is in shadow most of the time, and with the overhang on the feeder, it makes for poor photography. I lightend (is that a word?) the web cam for viewing, and it is mostly OK. The feeder is getting more visitors than the caged feeder, but still not as much as I had hoped. Maybe it will take them awhile. Skip sent me a pic of the female cardinal from the web cam, and here is one from the Birdcam. Here are a chickadee and a goldfinch from the Birdcam. As you can see, the Birdcam doesn't work well at this feeder. So I moved this camera to the new birdbath. After a couple of days I realized something- the birds are not using the new birdbath! I can think of a few of reasons:
One- The grackles left.
Two- The water level may be too deep.
Three- We have been getting a lot of rain lately.
I started to put only one gallon in the bath, so we will see if that helps. A did see a visitor at the birdbath. This is from the other Birdcam, you can see the birdbath in the background. Also, I don't think this attempt was very successful.

And finally, I never get tired of looking at the male and female cardinals!